TerrorismRAND study assesses threat posed by Americans joining jihadist fronts abroad
Although it is difficult to pin down the exact numbers of Western fighters slipping off to join the jihadist fronts in Syria and Iraq – the number is estimated to be around 100 — U.S. counterterrorism officials believe that those fighters pose a clear and present danger to American security. Some of these fighters will be killed in the fighting, some will choose to remain in the Middle East, but some will return, more radicalized than before and determined to continue their violent campaigns back in the United States.
Only about 100 Americans have left their homeland to join jihadist terrorist groups fighting in Syria and Iraq, including the Islamic State, according to a new RAND Corporation analysis.
Although it is difficult to pin down the exact numbers of Western fighters slipping off to join the jihadist fronts in Syria and Iraq, U.S. counterterrorism officials believe that those fighters pose a clear and present danger to American security.
A new analysis from RAND concludes there is no mass exodus to Syria and Iraq. Brian Michael Jenkins, RAND terrorism expert, outlines some of the potential fates of these people: some will be killed in the fighting, some will choose to remain in the Middle East, but some will return, more radicalized than before and determined to continue their violent campaigns back in the United States.
The incorporation into ISIS of a large number of foreign fighters from Europe as well as the United States who seem to have little future in any peaceful society will have long-term consequences. It means that the Islamic State can never be stable, Jenkins said. Either the thugs are killed off or they find new killing fields on its frontiers or beyond. Armies of fanatics are difficult to control.
Jenkins notes that the United States has had past experience with Americans who left for other jihadist fronts, which provides some clues as to the threat now posed by the ones who have gone or tried to go to Syria or Iraq.
Most who attempt to leave the United States to join a jihadist group are arrested en route. Of those who escape arrest, 40 percent eventually return. As the jihadist groups tend to use Westerners as suicide bombers or cannon fodder, many of those who do return to the United States will not have gained useful experience abroad.
Even so, Jenkins says federal and local law enforcement officials will want to review their cooperation protocols, especially in regards to surveillance of returning fighters. The returning jihadists are potentially valuable sources of intelligence and public knowledge that some returning fighters are being used as informants could in turn isolate other returning fighters in the extremist community.
The study, When Jihadis Come Marching Home: The Terrorist Threat Posed by Western Fighters Returning from Terrorist Fronts in Syria and Iraq, is available for downloading. The study includes an appendix listing those Americans who have left to join jihadist fronts. For more
— Read more in Brian Michael Jenkins, When Jihadis Come Marching Home: The Terrorist Threat Posed by Western Fighters Returning from Terrorist Fronts in Syria and Iraq (RAND, 2014)
